A.J. makes a good point: as the “Internet’s #1 Katrina blog,” I really should be blogging about the tornadoes that hit New Orleans today:

Tornadoes early Thursday tore through New Orleans neighborhoods that were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina just five months earlier, collapsing at least one previously damaged house and battering the airport, authorities said.

Roofs were ripped off and utility poles came down, but no serious injuries were reported. …

Electricity was knocked out at Louis Armstrong International Airport, grounding passenger flights and leaving travelers to wait in a dimly lit terminal powered by generators. The storm also ripped off part of a concourse roof, slammed one jetway into another, and flipped motorized runway luggage carts.

“There’s more damage to the terminal than I saw during the hurricane,” airport spokeswoman Michelle Duffourc said.

NOLA has more.

In other news, Tropical Storm Cindy, which hit Louisiana on July 5 — following virtually the same path that Katrina would take less than two months later — has been posthumously upgraded to a hurricane at landfall. This brings 2005’s record-shattering hurricane count to 15. (The previous record was 12, in 1969.)

P.S. Then there’s this:

Failure to designate a single person in charge of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina led to confusion and a lack of decisive action in the aftermath of the devastating storm, congressional investigators said on Wednesday. …

A report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ watchdog agency, said neither Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff nor former Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown filled a leadership role in the response to the hurricane.

The report also faulted Chertoff for waiting until a day after the storm hit and much of the Gulf Coast region was already devastated before he declared the area an event of national significance. That designation frees up federal funding and personnel to assist local officials.

Investigators said Chertoff should have designated the storm a catastrophic event [Gee, ya think?!? -ed.], which would have triggered a broader federal response.

“As a result, the federal posture generally was to wait for the affected states to request assistance,” the report said.

“In the absence of timely and decisive action and clear leadership responsibility and accountability, there were multiple chains of command, a myriad of approaches and processes for requesting and providing assistance and confusion about who should be advised of requests.”

GAO Comptroller General David Walker said at a news conference that in the future, the president needs to designate a single individual to take charge and cut through the bureaucratic red tape.

He said a similar recommendation made by GAO more than a decade ago after Hurricane Andrew went unheeded.

The same article quotes Mayor Ray Nagin as saying that New Orleans will be “pretty well protected by the next hurricane season.” Well, that’s reassuring.

Anyway, here’s the PDF file of the full GAO report. A Congressional report will follow in the coming weeks. (Hat tip: A Nun Mouse.)

UPDATE: The Star-Ledger reports:

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke attacked the GAO’s preliminary report as “premature and unprofessional.” He called it incomplete, filled with “obvious errors” and displaying “a significant misunderstanding of core aspects of the Katrina response.”

(Hat tip: Lojo, who has more.)

 
[UPDATE, 8/22/06: For the latest, up-to-date commentary on Spike Lee’s film — which I was in — please visit my homepage or my Katrina category.]
 
 

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been busily taking care of odds-and-ends in Connecticut: ripping my CD collection into MP3 form, searching for various old archived files that I need for Bloypedia entries, giving my parents a wedding slideshow, etc.

About my interview with Spike Lee yesterday… it was fun. When I walked into one of the conference rooms at the Park Central that the production company had reserved, I expected to be greeted by an assistant producer or something; instead, I was greeted by… Spike Lee! He was very pleasant and friendly. Immediately noticing my USC sweatshirt, he asked if I’d been to the Notre Dame game and what I thought about the Bush Push. Heh. We later chatted about Notre Dame’s struggling men’s basketball team and the restructured, massive Big East. (Spike thinks 16 teams is too many.)

Another picture of Spike Lee and me.

When it came to the actual interview, I was pretty satisfied with Spike’s questions and my answers. I have no idea what (if anything) he’ll use for the film, of course, but I thought the best parts were when I chronologically described what happened from my perspective during the days leading up to Katrina’s landfall, and when I answered his question about what lessons we should learn from Katrina. (I emphasized the importance of adequately preparing for predictable, ultimately inevitable disasters before they happen, e.g., a San Francisco earthquake, a Mount Rainier eruption, an East or West Coast tsunami, etc.) I also think I did a pretty good job pointing out how much worse Katrina could have been for New Orleans, if not for the “dumb luck” of a last-minute eyewall replacement cycle and a miniscule (but massively important) right-hand turn.

I touched on the racial aspect as well, explaining that I don’t believe there was any “racial animus” involved in Katrina — that the slow federal response was a symptom of incompetence, not malice. I said I think it’s preposterous to claim that the feds responded slowly because Bush “doesn’t care about black people.” And I pointed out that there’s simply no reason to buy into the idea that the government blew up the levees; the floods are perfectly well explained by what we now know about the levees’ shoddy construction. Again: incompetence, not malice.

Of course, I also emphasized the failures of the local and state governments. I was, as always, hard on Mayor Ray Nagin, explaining that I believe his administration’s failure to implement a timely and effective evacuation plan before the storm hit is worse than any of the multiple government failures after the storm, because, again, it was only dumb luck that prevented the storm’s immediate impact from being so horrifyingly severe and deadly that the slow response would have been almost a non-issue. There wouldn’t have been thousands of people waiting for days at the Convention Center, because the vast majority of those people would have died in the storm itself instead of being able to get themselves to higher ground while their city slowly drowned. And if those thousands of people had died, the focus of the blame game would have (quite rightly) centered on the local government’s failure to adequately prepare instead of the federal government’s failure to adequately respond. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and Mayor Nagin could have prevented a lot of the misery in the aftermath of Katrina if he had heeded the sound advice of those who knew better and ordered a mandatory evacuation earlier — and used the resourses at his disposal (like those drowned school buses) to help people get out.

In addition to interviewing me, Spike had me read several of my blog entries aloud on camera. He picked five posts: New Orleans in peril, Humbled by Katrina, Evacuate, The mayor of New Orleans is an idiot, and NHC urges N.O. mayor to issue mandatory evacuation. In reading the last one, I got to say the f-word. Hehe. :)

Anyway, because I was reading these posts off my computer screen, I used WireTap Pro to audio-record myself doing my dramatic readings. :) Here’s a clip of me reading “Evacuate,” including my infamous “get the hell out” line:

source file
MP3 File

I don’t know what Spike will do with the hour-plus of footage that he shot of me. I presume only a minute or two will be in the film, if that. I just hope my opinions and statements are treated fairly and accurately. Spike seemed like a really nice, intelligent guy in person. Here’s hoping his treatment of me in the film lives up to the high opinion I had of him yesterday.

Incidentally, as I was leaving, a member of the crew stopped me in the hallway and said words to the effect of, “I’m going to check out your blog when I get home. I haven’t heard of it before, but I really like you — you seem to be all about the truth. You don’t have an agenda, you’re just about the truth.” That was nice.

In other news, before meeting with Spike, I met up with Vicki, fellow former Trojan Hall resident and Becky’s ex-roommate from sophomore year. I hadn’t seen her in, oh, I don’t know, maybe five years? So it was great to see her and catch up. Here’s a picture of Vicki and me outside the Park Central:

 
[UPDATE, 8/22/06: For the latest, up-to-date commentary on Spike Lee’s film — which I was in — please visit my homepage or my Katrina category.]
 
 

Well, that went well… I think. I guess I’ll find out for sure when the movie comes out. :)

Here’s what I was looking at throughout the interview:

I’m on the bus back to Connecticut now (blogging via cell-phone modem). I’ll probably post some more thoughts on my meeting with Spike later.

UPDATE: Much more on the interview here.

 
[UPDATE, 8/22/06: For the latest, up-to-date commentary on Spike Lee’s film — which I was in — please visit my homepage or my Katrina category.]
 
 

I mentioned back in November that Spike Lee wants to interview me for his documentary about Hurricane Katrina. Well, tomorrow’s the day. He’s flying me from South Bend to Hartford tonight, I’m taking the bus down to New York tomorrow morning, and then I’m meeting with Spike at the Park Central around midday. Should be interesting.

I have no clue what Spike wants to ask me; I’m just the weather nerd with the blog, so I’m not sure what I can add to his film, exactly. I’ll find out tomorrow, I guess. I’ve made clear to Spike’s producer that I don’t agree with Katrina race-baiting, let alone any “Bush blew up the levees” absurdity. She said she’d passed along my e-mails to Spike, and assured me that Spike wants to include a “wide range of viewpoints” and so forth. All I can hope, really, is that if I end up being in the film, my views won’t be twisted beyond recognition. We shall see. I figure it’s worth the risk just for the free trip home. :)

My main debate now is over what to wear. When I was on MSNBC, I wore a shirt and tie, figuring I should try to look professional. But if I show up tomorrow as the nerdy white guy in a shirt and tie, I figure the temptation to cast me as “The Man” would become irresistible. :) So I’m leaning toward wearing a USC sweatshirt. Gotta give props to my alma mater!

Anyway, after meeting with Spike & co., I’ll then head back to Connecticut and stay at my parents’ house Friday and Saturday nights, before flying back to South Bend on Sunday. Unfortunately, I probably won’t have time to hang out with friends while I’m in the 8-6-0, as it’s a very quick visit and, in addition to visiting with my parents, I have lots of odds & ends to take care of (e.g., looking for some old photos & videos that I’ve been wanting; re-ripping my CD collection in the wake of losing my laptop; etc.). So, if you’re a Newingtonian and you don’t hear from me while I’m in town, don’t be offended. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it back for a slightly longer visit later this semester or over the summer.

So that’s my story. Blogging by yours truly will be primarily cell-phone-based from tonight through Sunday… though perhaps not entirely, and guestbloggers are, of course, free to continue doing their thing. Anyway, wish me luck!

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, President Bush pledged to leave no stone unturned in investigating what went wrong in the government’s response. In his address to the nation on September 15, 2005, the president said:

I also want to know all the facts about the government response to Hurricane Katrina. … Four years after the frightening experience of September the 11th, Americans have every right to expect a more effective response in a time of emergency. When the federal government fails to meet such an obligation, I, as President, am responsible for the problem, and for the solution. So I’ve ordered every Cabinet Secretary to participate in a comprehensive review of the government response to the hurricane. This government will learn the lessons of Hurricane Katrina. We’re going to review every action and make necessary changes, so that we are better prepared for any challenge of nature, or act of evil men, that could threaten our people.

The United States Congress also has an important oversight function to perform. Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.

Alas, in keeping with a pattern of Bush Administration behavior that should be familiar by now, it is beginning to sound like this was, to be blunt, a lie. And “members of both parties” are rightfully upset. The AP reports:

The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government’s sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.

In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won’t answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.

A White House spokesman said the administration is committed to working with separate Senate and House investigations of the Katrina response but wants to protect the confidentiality of presidential advisers.

“No one believes that the government responded adequately,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. “And we can’t put that story together if people feel they’re under a gag order from the White House.”

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the committee’s Republican chair, said she respects the White House’s reluctance to reveal advice to President Bush from his top aides, which is generally covered by executive privilege.

Still, she criticized the dearth of information from agency officials about their contacts with the White House.

“We are entitled to know if someone from the Department of Homeland Security calls someone at the White House during this whole crisis period,” Collins said. “So I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information about who called whom on what day.”

She added, “It is completely inappropriate” for the White House to bar agency officials from talking to the Senate committee.

There’s executive privilege, and then there’s obstructionism for obstructionism’s sake. This clearly appears to cross the line into the latter category.

A White House spokesman says the administration has “cooperated” because “the administration’s deputy homeland security adviser, Ken Rapuano, has briefed House and Senate lawmakers on the federal response” and another homeland security adviser will present the senate with “a ‘lessons learned’ report” in several weeks. Riiiight… by that logic, if the police want to investigate me for murder, I can “cooperate” with their investigation by “briefing” them on the fact that I was not involved and submitting a “evidence report” listing all relevant items they might have found in my house, all the while refusing to be interviewed or searched.

The shameless, arrogant bullsh*t seems to know no bounds with this administration. (Hat tip: A Nun Mouse.)

It just occurred to me check something that, in 24 years, I can’t believe I’ve never thought to check before: Was there an active tropical cyclone in the Atlantic when I was born?

The answer, according to Wikipedia and Unisys, is yes. Tropical Storm Jose was wandering the east-central Atlantic, several hundred miles southwest of the Azores, on 9:22 AM on October 30, 1981, when one Brendan Loomer Loy came into the world. Jose fizzled out over the ocean on November 1, and did not hit land. Track here.

Jose formed more than 24 hours before I was born, on October 29, 1981 at 7:00 AM EST. That brings us to the question that winds up producing the far more interesting factoid: what was the first tropical cyclone to form during my lifetime? Answer: Katrina, the first storm ever to bear that name. It formed in the western Caribbean at 7:00 PM EST on November 2, 1981 and hit Cuba as a Category 1 hurricane on November 5 before accelerating to sea. (So that makes it the first hurricane of my life, as well as the first cylcone to form during my life.) Track here.

“Katrina” was on the rotating list of storm names again in 1987 and 1993, but those seasons weren’t active enough to produce a “K” storm. But by 1999, we’d entered this new, more active tropical cycle, and the second Tropical Storm Katrina in Atlantic-basin history formed just off the coast of Nicaragua on October 29, 1999 at 2:00 PM EDT, just hours before my 18th birthday. (I wasn’t watching the tropics, but rather, was getting ready to leave for Disneyland with some friends from my dorm, including this girl named Becky who I had a crush on.) Katrina hit Nicaragua as a minimal T.S. and quickly weakened — though not before I had become a legal adult while it was still an active cyclone. Track here.

And then, six years later, came the Katrina we all remember, the monster hurricane that killed more than 1,300 people and devastated the Gulf Coast. The storm itself was unspeakably tragic, of course — but, meanwhile, the attention it brought to BrendanLoy.com turned me into a media mini-celebrity, which has been a long, strange, but mostly enjoyable trip. Anyway, perhaps it was this weather nerd’s fate, since the first hurricane of my life was named Katrina and I entered adulthood during the next Katrina, that the last Katrina would be a momentous event in my life! (I say “last Katrina” because 2005’s Katrina will be the last storm ever to bear that name, as it will be retired and a replaced with a new “K” name starting in 2011.)

More than 3,200 people are still officially listed as missing from Hurricane Katrina, although some “likely have already been found by their relatives but the [Find Family National Call Center] hasn’t been notified of their status.”

It’s worth remembering that the list of those “missing” after 9/11 was similarly bloated for quite a long time, such that, as I recall, a few of the people whose names were read aloud at the Ground Zero memorial service on September 11, 2002 were actually alive and well.

Still, one can’t help but wonder whether some of these “missing” people really are dead — washed out to sea or whatever — and whether the death toll, currently at 1,386, may yet rise significantly. Hopefully not.

P.S. In a related story, FEMA has drastically increased its estimate of the number of people displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The number now stands at 2 million. (Hat tip: A Nun Mouse.)

Following up on my previous post… the AP reports:

Mayor Ray Nagin apologized Tuesday for a Martin Luther King Day speech in which he predicted that New Orleans would be a “chocolate” city once more and asserted that “God was mad at America.”

“I said some things that were totally inappropriate. … It shouldn’t have happened,” Nagin said, explaining he was caught up in the moment as he spoke to mostly black spectators, many of them fearful of being shut out of the city’s rebuilding. …

On Tuesday, Nagin said his comments about God were inappropriate and stemmed from a private conversation he had with a minister earlier. “I need to be more sensitive and more aware of what I’m saying,” he said.

Indeed.

As a punishment, I suggest that Nagin write “GOD IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR MY FAILURE TO EVACUATE MY CITY” on the chalkboard 200 times, and then compose a 15-page essay explaining why it’s important for local governments in disaster-prone cities to have effective evacuation plans and be prepared to implement them in a timely manner. (If he wishes, he can explain that God wants it to be that way.)

I also suggest that New Orleans voters kick this bum out of office, whenever the election actually happens.

But it’s nice that he apologized. Alas, it doesn’t change my firm belief that he’s an incompetent fool.

P.S. Eugene Volokh has a thoughtful post on this subject, though I think it’s too charitable by half to Mayor Nagin.

Hurricane Katrina and other recent storms are a sign that “God is mad at America,” according to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin:

“Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it’s destroyed and put stress on this country. … Surely he doesn’t approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We’re not taking care of ourselves.”

He added that the rebuilt New Orleans will be a majority black city because “it’s the way God wants it to be.”

Cripes.

The National Hurricane Center has issued its official Tropical Cyclone Reports on several of 2005’s storms, including Hurricane Katrina.

I’ll get to the nerdy stuff in a second, but first the question that even non-nerds want to know the answer to: How strong was Katrina in New Orleans? The answer, as expected, is unsettling:

While the intensity of Katrina was Category 3 as the center of the eye made its closest approach (about 20 n mi) to the east of downtown New Orleans, the strongest winds corresponding to that intensity were likely present only over water to the east of the eye. The sustained winds over all of metropolitan New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain likely remained weaker than Category 3 strength. The strongest sustained wind in New Orleans is subject to speculation since observations are sparse, due in part to the power failures that disabled ASOS stations in the area before peak wind conditions occurred. However, the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in eastern New Orleans measured a 1-minute sustained wind of 84 kt (at an elevation of about 12 m) near 1100 UTC 29 August. Also, a few instrumented towers placed in various locations in the metropolitan area by the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program (FCMP) and by Texas Tech University measured sustained winds in the range of 61-68 kt. The Mid-Lake Pontchartrain NWS site (16 m elevation), located along the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway about 8 n mi north of the south shore of the lake, also measured a one-minute sustained wind of 68 kt. Even though these various sites likely did not experience the maximum wind in the area, the Mid-Lake Pontchartrain site had open marine exposure, unlike most locations in the city of New Orleans. It appears likely that most of the city experienced sustained surface winds of Category 1 or Category 2 strength. It is important to note, however, that winds in a hurricane generally increase from the ground upward to a few hundred meters in altitude, and the sustained winds experienced on upper floors of high-rise buildings were likely stronger than the winds at the same location near the ground. For example, on average the 25th story of a building would experience a sustained wind corresponding to one Saffir-Simpson category stronger than that experienced at the standard observing height of 10 m.

For those who still think New Orleans experienced its worst-case scenario this past August, read that again: KATRINA’S WINDS WERE ONLY CAT. 1-2 IN THE CITY!!! And the ridiculous 27-foot storm surges didn’t occur in Louisiana, they occurred in Mississippi. New Orleans was submerged by a hurricane with Category 1, maybe 2, winds in the city, and a Category 2, maybe 3, surge in the city. All the heavy Cat. 3-4 stuff was elsewhere, so don’t be fooled by the big numbers. New Orleans was, meteorologically speaking, spared the brunt of it.

Good Lord, imagine how much worse it would have been, if the track had been just slightly different, bringing the winds and surge that hit Mississippi over New Orleans. I know I’ve said this before, but now there’s more hard data backing it up, and it really needs to be emphasized. You think those predictions of 100,000 dead were exaggerated? Think again, buster. It almost happened. And if you’re a New Orleans resident considering moving back home, my personal advice would be: don’t do it until they’ve got a Category Five-strength levee in place. I know Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco and George Bush don’t want me to tell you that, but it’s the truth. Your city dodged a meteorological bullet on August 29 — and it was still destroyed. Granted, shoddily designed levees were the proximate cause of its destruction, but the fact remains that even those reinforced Cat. 3-strength levees they’re promising by next June won’t protect you from a storm that does what Katrina almost did. And if such a storm ever hits — check that: when it hits — the city will be f***ed unless there’s a levee system much, much stronger than anything that’s ever been there before. Is it worth the risk of creating a whole new life in a city that’s just asking to be destroyed again, when the hammer stroke could fall at any time? Just my personal opinion, but no way, I wouldn’t live in New Orleans till they’ve got that new levee up. (So I guess you can consider this my “stay the hell out” post.)

Not that Katrina wasn’t plenty bad enough without resorting to even more horrifying worst-case scenarios. Indeed, reading the NHC’s dry recitation in the “Casualty and Damage Statistics” section of the storm’s devastating toll — not just on New Orelans, but on the whole central Gulf Coast — leaves one almost dumbfounded:

The extent, magnitude, and impacts of the damage caused by Katrina are staggering and are well beyond the scope of this report to fully describe. Thousands of homes and businesses throughout entire neighborhoods in the New Orleans metropolitan area were destroyed by flood. Strong winds also caused damage in the New Orleans area, including downtown where windows in some high rise buildings were blown out and the roof of the Louisiana Superdome was partially peeled away. The storm surge of Katrina struck the Mississippi coastline with such ferocity that entire coastal communities were obliterated, some left with little more than the foundations upon which homes, businesses, government facilities, and other historical buildings once stood. Despite being more distant from the eye of Katrina, the storm surge over Dauphin Island, Alabama destroyed or damaged dozens of beachfront homes and cut a new canal through the island’s western end. Many of the most severely impacted areas along the northern Gulf coast could take years to completely rebuild. Katrina’s heavy rains in southern Florida flooded some neighborhoods, primarily in Miami-Dade County. Many other structures from Florida and Georgia westward to Louisiana that avoided surge or fresh water floods, including some areas well inland, were damaged by strong winds and tornadoes. Considerable damage to some homes and agricultural facilities was caused by several tornadoes in Georgia. Strong winds caused significant tree damage throughout much of Mississippi and Alabama. Combining all of the areas it impacted, Katrina left about three million people without electricity, some for several weeks.

The economic and environmental ramifications of Katrina have been widespread and could in some respects be long-lasting, due to impacts on large population and tourism centers, the oil and gas industry, and transportation. The hurricane severely impacted or destroyed workplaces in New Orleans and other heavily populated areas of the northern Gulf coast, resulting in thousands of lost jobs and millions of dollars in lost tax revenues for the impacted communities and states. Along the Mississippi coast, several large casinos on floating barges were damaged or destroyed when the surge pushed them onshore. Large numbers of evacuees have not returned home, producing a shortage of workers for those businesses that have reopened. Major beach erosion occurred along the tourism-dependent coasts of Mississippi and Alabama. A significant percentage of United States oil refining capacity was disrupted after the storm due to flooded refineries, crippled pipelines, and several oil rigs and platforms damaged, adrift or capsized. An oil rig under construction along the Mobile River in Alabama was dislodged, floated 1.5 miles northward, and struck the Cochrane Bridge just north of downtown Mobile. An offshore oil rig washed up near the beach of Dauphin Island, Alabama. Several million gallons of oil were spilled from damaged facilities scattered throughout southeastern Louisiana. While several facilities have since resumed operations, as of this writing oil and natural gas production and refining capacity in the northern Gulf of Mexico region remains less than that prior to Katrina. Key transportation arteries were disrupted or cut off by the hurricane. Traffic along the Mississippi River was below normal capacity for at least two weeks following the storm. Major highways into and through New Orleans were blocked by floods. Major bridges along the northern Gulf coast were destroyed, including several in Mississippi and the Interstate 10 Twin Span Bridge connecting New Orleans and Slidell, Louisiana.

Estimates of the insured property losses caused by Katrina vary considerably and range between about $20 billion and $60 billion. The American Insurance Services Group (AISG) estimates that Katrina is responsible for $38.1 billion of insured losses in the United States. A preliminary estimate of the total damage cost of Katrina is assumed to be roughly twice the insured losses (using the AISG estimate), or about $75 billion. This figure would make Katrina far and away the costliest hurricane in United States history. Even after adjusting for inflation, the estimated total damage cost of Katrina is roughly double that of Hurricane Andrew (1992). Normalizing for inflation and for increases in population and wealth, only the 1926 hurricane that struck southern Florida surpasses Katrina in terms of damage cost. However, this would not be the case if the values on the higher end of the range of Katrina estimates are later found to be the most accurate. The Insurance Information Institute reports that, mostly due to Katrina but combined with significant impacts from the other hurricanes striking the United States this year, 2005 was by a large margin the costliest year ever for insured catastrophe losses in this country.

Data provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) indicate that over 1.2 million people along the northern Gulf coast from southeastern Louisiana to Alabama were under some type of evacuation order, but it is not clear how many people actually evacuated. Media reports indicate that many displaced residents have moved either temporarily or permanently to other areas in the United States. A large number of these people might never return to live in their pre-Katrina homes or cities. Thousands of people are still living in hotels and temporary shelters as of this writing. Some people remain separated from other family members and/or are unable to determine if their family member(s) survived the storm.

Wow.

Okay, on to the nerdy stuff. The report answers, or at least attempts to answer, several questions that have been bothering me for months. One is: how could the winds have been so (relatively) weak at landfall, when the pressure was so low?

The estimated Buras landfall intensity of 110 kt, just beneath the threshold of Category 4, is quite low relative to many other hurricanes with a comparable minimum central pressure. In fact, the central pressure of 920 mb is now the lowest on record in the Atlantic basin for an intensity of 110 kt, surpassing Hurricane Floyd (1999) that at one point had a central pressure of 930 mb with an intensity of 110 kt. The 920 mb pressure is also the third lowest at U. S. landfall on record, behind only Hurricane Camille in 1969 (909 mb) and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that struck the Florida Keys (892 mb). The relatively weak winds in Katrina for such a low pressure are the result of the broadening pressure field on 29 August that spread the pressure gradient over a much larger than average distance from the center, as confirmed by both surface and aircraft observations. The generally weakening convection likely also reduced momentum mixing down to the surface, contributing to surface winds being less than what the usual 90% adjustment from flight level winds would dictate. Katrina exemplifies that there is not simply a direct one-to-one relationship between the central pressure and the maximum sustained winds in a hurricane.

Question number two: why was the storm surge so ridiculously high — as high as, if not higher than, Cat. 5 Camille — if Katrina was only a weakening Cat. 3 at landfall in Mississippi?

The massive storm surge produced by Katrina, even though it had weakened from Category 5 intensity the previous day to Category 3 at landfall in Louisiana, can be generally explained by the huge size of the storm. Katrina had on 29 August a large (about 25-30 n mi) radius of maximum winds and a very wide swath of hurricane force winds that extended at least 75 n mi to the east from the center. Even though Hurricane Camille (1969) was more intense than Katrina at landfall while following a similar track, Camille was far more compact and produced comparably high storm surge values along a much narrower swath. Also, Katrina had already generated large northward-propagating swells, leading to substantial wave setup along the northern Gulf coast, when it was at Category 4 and 5 strength during the 24 hours or so before landfall. In fact, buoy 42040, operated by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) and located about 64 n mi south of Dauphin Island, Alabama, reported a significant wave height (defined as the average of the one-third highest waves) of 30 feet as early as 0000 UTC 29 August. This buoy later measured a peak significant wave height of 55 feet at 1100 UTC that matches the largest significant wave height ever measured by a NDBC buoy. Overall, Katrina’s
very high water levels are attributable to a large Category 3 hurricane’s storm surge being enhanced by waves generated not long before by a Category 5 strength storm.

And what about Katrina’s rapid weakening in the final hours before landfall? What the hell?

The new eyewall that formed late on 27 August and contracted early on 28 August began to erode on its southern side very late on 28 August, while another outer ring of convection consolidated. These structural changes likely contributed to the rapid weakening that was observed prior to final landfall. Katrina turned northward, toward the northern Gulf coast, around the ridge over Florida early on 29 August. The hurricane then made landfall, at the upper end of Category 3 intensity with estimated maximum sustained winds of 110 kt, near Buras, Louisiana at 1110 UTC 29 August. Katrina continued northward and made its final landfall near the mouth of the Pearl River at the Louisiana/Mississippi border, still as a Category 3 hurricane with an estimated intensity of 105 kt. The rapid weakening of Katrina, from its peak intensity of 150 kt to 110 kt during the last 18 h or so leading up to the first Gulf landfall, appears to have been primarily due to internal structural changes, specifically the deterioration of the inner eyewall without the complete formation of a new outer eyewall. However, Katrina remained very large as it weakened, and the extent of tropical storm-force and hurricane-force winds was nearly the same at final landfall on 29 August as it had been late on 28 August. The weakening could have been aided by entrainment of dry air that was seen eroding the deep convection over the western semicircle while Katrina approached the coast. Gradually increasing wind shear, slightly lower ocean temperatures, and (following the first Gulf landfall) interaction with land each could also have played a role. Without extensive investigation, however, it is not possible to assess the relative roles played by these various factors. The weakening of major hurricanes as they approach the northern Gulf coast has occurred on several occasions in the past when one or more of these factors have been in place. Indeed, an unpublished study by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reveals that, during the past 20 years, all 11 hurricanes having a central pressure less than 973 mb 12 h before landfall in the northern Gulf of Mexico weakened during these last 12 h.

There’s more about this issue too — an even lengthier, nerdier discussion, later in the report — but I won’t go into it here. If you can handle the weather-nerd stuff, though, I definitely recommend reading the whole thing (PDF).

Oh, and last but not least, the NHC gives itself a well-deserved pat on the back for its extraordinarily accurate forecasting of Katrina’s track, which established it as, apparently, the only competent government agency in America:

Average official forecast track errors in nautical miles (n mi)… for Katrina were 24… 42… 64… 96… 174… 213… and 244… for the 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h forecasts respectively. These forecast errors were considerably less than the average official Atlantic track errors for the 10-year period 1995-2004 of 42, 75, 107, 138, 202, 236, 310 for the 12, 24, 36, 48, 72, 96, and 120 h forecasts, respectively (Table 4). … The 12-48 h official forecasts during Katrina represented significant improvements of 43%, 44%, 40%, and 31%, respectively, over the corresponding 10-year averages. The relatively small errors at 12-48 hours greatly helped in the issuance of generally accurate and timely coastal watches and warnings (Table 5). The 72, 96, and 120 h official track forecast errors were still less than the long-term averages, but only by 14%, 10%, and 25%, respectively. The errors at these longer lead times can be partially attributed to the difficult forecast scenario associated with Katrina’s west-southwestward motion across the southern Florida peninsula and eastern Gulf of Mexico. …

The official track forecasts for Katrina issued within about two and a half days of landfall of the center in Louisiana were exceptionally accurate and consistent. Every official forecast that was issued beginning at 2100 UTC 26 August showed a track crossing the coast of Mississippi and/or southeastern Louisiana. The NHC does not explicitly issue forecasts for the precise location or timing of landfall. However, it is instructive to examine the forecasts for Katrina verifying at 1200 UTC 29 August, less than an hour following the initial Louisiana landfall. The official track forecasts issued 12, 24, 36, and 48 hours prior to 1200 UTC 29 August were in error by only 19, 24, 32, and 56 n mi, respectively. These errors are less than half the magnitude of the corresponding 10-year averages among all Atlantic basin forecasts. Importantly, they were all issued with a hurricane watch or warning in effect for the northern Gulf coast. Much of the credit for these very small errors must be given to the guidance provided by several dynamical models during this time frame.

Proving once again, as if it needed proving, that Rick Santorum is an idiot.

The NHC goes on to point out that the intensity forecasts were less accurate than usual, thanks to Katrina’s two rapid-intensification cycles. “Obviously, accurately forecasting the timing and magnitude of such events remains an operational challenge, in part because the available intensity guidance models generally have little or no skill in forecasting rapid intensity changes.” However, “every official forecast within about three days of landfall in Louisiana correctly anticipated that Katrina would be a major hurricane (at least Category 3) at landfall on the northern Gulf coast.”

P.S. This is scary:

The total number of fatalities known, as of this writing, to be either directly or indirectly related to Katrina is 1336, based on reports to date from state and local officials in five states: 1090 fatalities in Louisiana, 228 in Mississippi, 14 in Florida, 2 in Georgia, and 2 in Alabama. The total number of fatalities directly related to the forces of Katrina is estimated to be about 1200 spread across four states, with about 1000 of these in Louisiana, about 200 in Mississippi, 6 in Florida, and one in Georgia. Especially for Louisiana and Mississippi, the number of direct fatalities is highly uncertain and the true number might not ever be known. This uncertainty exists because complete statistics on causes of death are only available from some areas. As of this writing, bodies are still being found, many of those found have not yet been identified, and the causes of many deaths remain under investigation. More than four thousand persons are still reported missing, so it is possible the death toll could grow beyond current estimates.

One hopes, fervently, that most of those are “phantom” missing persons, along the lines of the many supposed 9/11 victims who turned out months later to be a-okay.

I’ve said before that Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is a bit like the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon: if it had been the only thing that had happened that day, it would have been a huge, huge, HUGE news story, but because it was dwarfed by an even greater disaster happening at virtually the same time, it was — improbably — thoroughly overshadowed.

Well, the Mississippi Sun-Herald is trying to help the Magnolia State step out of the Crescent City’s shadow. From a front-page editorial yesterday:

As Aug. 29 recedes into the conscious time of many Americans, the great storm that devastated 70 miles of Mississippi’s Coast, destroying the homes and lives of hundreds of thousands, fades into a black hole of media obscurity.

Never mind that, if taken alone, the destruction in Mississippi would represent the single greatest natural disaster in 229 years of American history. The telling of Katrina by national media has created the illusion of the hurricane’s impact on our Coast as something of a footnote. …

The depth of the suffering and the height of the courage of South Mississippians is an incredible story that the American people must know. But, in the shadows of the New Orleans story, the Mississippi Coast has become invisible and forgotten to most Americans. …

Our plea to newspapers and television and radio and Web sites across the land is no less important today: Please, tell our story. Hear the voice of our people and tell it far and wide.

We are here. Do not forsake us.

We are no footnote.

The “single greatest natural disaster” thing isn’t quite right; just ask the folks in Galveston. But nevertheless, the Sun-Herald’s points are well-taken. (Hat tip: E&P, via A Nun Mouse.)

Hurricane Katrina’s victims in New Orleans were disproportionately white, statistics reveal. Also, less than half of Katrina’s victims in Louisiana were black.

Over to you, Kanye West.

NBC’s Brian Williams did an interview with President Bush yesterday. Here is the transcript. Excerpted below are the portions relating to Hurricane Katrina, with boldface for emphasis and commentary by yours truly in brackets and italics:

WILLIAMS: Mr. President, this is the first chance we’ve had to talk to you since Katrina. And I want to go back to that first weekend. It was said that a lot of — it was a holiday weekend — a lot of your staff were scattered about different places. There was a wedding in Europe. Did you have the people around you that you needed? Along with everyone else it took time to realize the scale of the disaster.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You’re talking about before the storm hit? Yeah, we anticipated a big storm. I don’t think anybody anticipated a category 5 initially.

[There are two problems with this statement.

First off, I’m not sure what Bush means by “initially,” but Williams’s question asked about “that first weekend,” i.e., the weekend before the storm’s Monday-morning landfall. Well, by Friday night, I was saying (echoing the meteorological consensus) that “this thing is going to be a monster. The water out there is very warm and very deep, and the atmosphere is very conducive to strengthening. There’s nothing standing in Katrina’s way except, well, the Gulf Coast.” (That was followed barely an hour later by my now-famous “get the hell out” post.) By Saturday morning, the official forecast called for a strong Category Four (145 mph winds; Cat. 5 starts at 156 mph) and the NHC stated: “IT IS NOT OUT OF THE QUESTION THAT KATRINA COULD REACH CATEGORY 5 STATUS AT SOME POINT BEFORE LANDFALL.” On Saturday evening, I wrote, “Because no one else seems willing to say this, I’m going to keep screaming it until my face turns blue: Katrina could be another Camille,” and I quoted Charles Fenwick’s statement that “If you were writing a book on hurricanes and wanted to get examples of the factors needed to create a category five hurricane, you would not have to search hard. For all exist right now.” By the wee hours of Sunday morning, I was taking it a step further: “I think it will definitely get to Category 5 later today.” And then, shortly after 6:00 AM Sunday, Katrina did in fact become a Cat. 5. Now, admittedly, the official NHC forecast didn’t call for a Cat. 5 until it had already happened, but it was certainly well within the realm of possibility, and since it’s the job of government planners to plan for the worst, Bush’s statement that “I don’t think anybody anticipated a category 5 initially” cannot be justified, IMHO.

But even more importantly than that, it’s not really relevant whether anybody “anticipated a category 5,” because Katrina wasn’t a category 5 at landfall — indeed, she probably wasn’t even a Cat. 4, and her winds in New Orleans proper may not have exceeded Cat. 1 strength — yet she still did all that damage, and could have done vastly more if not for a last-minute eastward turn in the track. So it’s disingenuous to say “we didn’t think it would be a category 5″ because, for purposes of discussing the impact on New Orleans, it wasn’t, and yet they still weren’t prepared.

And it’s not like it was a mystery that a less-than-category-five hurricane would be a disaster. As I wrote early Monday morning, a few hours before landfall as Katrina was weakening and jogging eastward, “from everything I’ve read, even a Category 3 hurricane would be enough to top the levees. … so unless the experts who studies these scenarios are wrong, I think New Orleans is still going to flood.” Now, as it turns out, Katrina wasn’t even really a Cat. 3 in New Orleans itself (she had probably weakened to a Cat. 2 by then, and N.O. was spared the strongest winds and surge anyway, being on the west side of the eye), and thus she wasn’t actually strong enough to “top” the levees; the levees were instead breached in a way that no one anticipated, via seepage thanks to shoddy construction. But that distinction is by no means an excuse for Bush, Brown, Blanco, Nagin & co., because the “seepage” produced less destruction, and far fewer deaths, than an “overtopping” scenario would have… so if they weren’t prepared for the former, they obviously weren’t prepared for the latter, either.

Anyway, enough commentary by me. Back to the president…]

It came across the Gulf and started to pick up speed. But, you bet, we started pre-positioning equipment. I was on the phone to Governor Blanco, Governor Barbour, Governor Riley, asking them if they had all they needed.

I urged at one point in time, as I recall, over the weekend, I urged that there be an evacuation of New Orleans at the recommendation of Secretary Chertoff. [Give Bush credit for this, because I believe he was indeed calling for an evacuation by Saturday, whereas the idiot Nagin didn’t order people out till Sunday.]

No, we were in touch and thought we were pretty well prepared for the storm. But as your broadcast accurately noted, the federal government and other levels of the government fell down on the job. I — like you and like the pictures you showed — I was appalled that a nation as wealthy as ours was not able to respond as effectively as we should have and took blame for it.

I mean, to the extent that the federal government was ineffective, I’m responsible. And I understand that. And now the question is how do we learn lessons from the response and how do we effectively help the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana rebuild?

WILLIAMS: Were you watching the coverage? Were you seeing the same pictures that Americans were seeing?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I was. I was. I was disturbed by the fact that there’s, I guess my reaction was, “Where’s the communications?” I mean, we had news people able to really be the fact witness on the ground when, in fact, it should have been government officials at all levels gathering the information, sending it back to headquarters so there could be an appropriate response. I was amazed that our communication system was basically down to a certain extent. And the reason why it’s troubling not only for the people on the ground affected by the storm, but imagine an attack or a pandemic of avian flu. And those are the lessons that we need to learn from Katrina and better prepare this nation.

WILLIAMS: We have three out of four people in the area out of their homes, 100,000 uninhabitable structures. It’s a mess down in the region. You said when you were there you can’t imagine America without New Orleans. A newspaper headline though yesterday said, “Death of American City, We’re About to Lose New Orleans.” Could that ever happen on your watch, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I certainly hope not. I meant what I said. New Orleans is a great city. It needs to be helped so it can rise.

Part of the strategy’s got to be to do something with these levees. Look, New Orleans isn’t coming back unless people are assured that any investment or risk taken will be mitigated as best as possible by a modern day levee system. And one of the things we’ve learned about the levees, Brian, is that they call the levees a certain category, but they weren’t up to standards. [This is absolutely true. The levees were supposed to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane, and yet, what actually hit New Orleans (as opposed to Mississippi) was basically a glorified Cat. 2, if that. And yet the city still flooded. More on that aspect of the disaster here.] And so we’re now in the process of working with local folks to get the standards of the levees up to where they should have been prior to the storm and even better. [The “even better” is the crucial part of that statement. Personally, I would not consider moving to New Orleans unless they had Category 5-rated levees. Katrina wasn’t the “worst-case scenario” — not even close. But the worst will happen someday, and God help us if we’re not ready.] And hopefully we’ll have the capacity to announce that relatively quickly.

That’ll start to change the mindset of people for New Orleans. It’s that, look, “Now, I feel comfortable about rebuilding my home.” Or, “Now, I feel comfortable about making an investment that will create jobs.”

Secondly, we’ve got to deal with housing. New Orleans is different from the Gulf Coast and Mississippi. Gulf Coast and Mississippi’s got lands and the trailers are being moved in at the request of the Governor and local officials. People are beginning to resettle there. New Orleans doesn’t have as much land, as you know from your travels. And so we’re in the process of making sure people do not get booted out of hotel rooms but are given the information necessary about the money available for relocation expenses.

WILLIAMS: After the tragedy, I heard someone ask rhetorically, “What if this had been Nantucket, Massachusetts, or Inner Harbor, Baltimore or Chicago or Houston?” Are you convinced the response would have been the same? Was there any social or class or race aspect to the response?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Somebody I heard — you know, a couple of people said — you know, said, “Bush didn’t respond because of race, because he’s a racist.” That is absolutely wrong. And I reject that. Frankly, that’s the kind of thing that — you can call me anything you want — but do not call me a racist. Secondly, this storm hit all up and down. It hit New Orleans. It hit down in Mississippi too. And people should not forget the damage done in Mississippi.

WILLIAMS: Biloxi was hit terribly hard.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Absolutely, and Pascagoula and Waveland. You know it. You saw it first hand what it’s like. We had people from all walks of life affected by that storm.

I remember saying that, when I thanked those chopper drivers from the Coast Guard who performed brilliantly, they didn’t lower those booms to pick up people saying, “What color skin do you have?” They said, “A fellow American’s in jeopardy. And I’m going to do my best to rescue that person.”

WILLIAMS: What about this widely held perception in New Orleans that the federal government somehow played a role in the blowing of the levees? [Is that really a “widely held perception”? Really?] So many people believe that now. Does that break your heart that that exists?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yeah, I’ve heard that. And when I went to one of the shelters, I remember one of the ladies saying to me and Governor Blanco, “You know, why did the federal government, or why did government, blow this up?” And I said, “Ma’am, I really can assure you it didn’t happen.” But yet there’s a perception, particularly in the Ninth Ward, that that’s the case.

WILLIAMS: What do you do about that?

PRESIDENT BUSH: You just try to tell the truth. You know, it was really interesting. If you read the book about the great flood in the late ’20s, the levees were breached in order to save New Orleans. And so maybe that’s part of why people are thinking that way. It just didn’t happen. And I’m so sorry people feel that way, because one of the things that’s important is for people to trust, you know, the government. And if they thought that the government had helped destroy their lives, then obviously there would be no trust. [Heh. Ya think?]

WILLIAMS: It’s been two months since your last visit to the region. Was there any notion of making it a domestic Marshall Plan of your administration, of saying, “Let’s get together and rebuild this area?”

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, we’re doing that. We’ve got $62 billion dollars on the table. That’s a significant amount to begin with. And the key thing is to make sure that we fulfill these milestones that we’ve laid out.

Step one — particularly in Mississippi and eventually in New Orleans — is get rid of all the debris. You cannot rebuild with stacks and piles of debris. And so they’re in the process of removing thousands of tons of debris.

And secondly, is to pass proper laws that will encourage people to make investments and encourage small businesses to invest.

And thirdly, is to get the SBA loan process more streamlined. And one thing we’re working on is to have the local banks be the lead lender with the SBA as a backup and not vice versa.

The initial response was to make sure people got cash in hand to help them adjust to these terrible circumstances they found themselves in. So, you can call it what you want to call it. But there’s a massive operation underway. And Brian, as you know, the devastation is so big it’s going to take a while to rebuild. And what people need to know down there is that there is a commitment at all levels of the government to help.

WILLIAMS: Any regret where Michael Brown is concerned?

PRESIDENT BUSH: You know, Michael, resigned. And I, you know, I had worked with him during the four hurricanes that hit Florida. He got pretty good marks. And in this case, for whatever reason, the system overwhelmed the whole process. And Michael said, “I’m responsible.” And he left.

WILLIAMS: Do you see the blame as being shared? Governor, Mayor, that kind of thing?

PRESIDENT BUSH: I hope we’re beyond that. As I said, I’ll take the blame for the federal response. And I genuinely mean that. But think it’s very important for people to not focus on politics, but focus on how we work together to achieve what we all want, which is a Louisiana that’s vibrant and a New Orleans that’s a shining light down there and a Gulf Coast of Mississippi that’s been rebuilt and is vibrant and thriving.

Overall, not a bad show by Dubya, but it really would be nice if they could drop the last vestiges of their “we didn’t realize it would be that bad” act. (Previous, more egregious examples here and here.) To the extent they were caught off-guard by the storm’s ferocity and/or New Orleans’s vulnerability, they were idiots, simple as that. Anyone with half a brain who was paying a modicum of attention to the NHC forecasts (or to my blog :) suspected by Friday night, and knew by Saturday morning, that Katrina had the potential to be an unprecedented calamity for New Orleans. And by Sunday, that potential was turning into a near-certainty. Remember “HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS”? Yeah. That statement (which also noted that “MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER”) was issued Sunday morning… “that first weekend.”

Following up on my previous post… in the spirit of 2002’s “The Whistleblowers,” the Time “Person of the Year” issue for 2005 should feature Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, Michael Brown, Michael Chertoff and George W. Bush, under the heading “The Katrina F**k-ups.”

Now, try getting them to agree to that photo-shoot… :)

Toni of Electric Mist, a blogger who I linked to several times in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, asked me to let y’all know that she contributed an essay to a Chin Music Press book called Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?, and all profits from all books pre-ordered through January 6 will be donated to Katrina recovery efforts in the Crescent City.